Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [62]
“I can’t believe you hung up on me, you dick.”
Sara came in from the cactus room, looking not entirely sorry to see me. She had on her gardening boots, big, steel-toed, motor-head butt kickers, black as stovepipes, scuffed and muddied and beat to shit, and a cracked old leather coat of some indeterminate color between olive and buff. It was creased and split and mud-spattered, had belt loops but no belt, and its fur-trimmed collar looked as though it had been lovingly chewed by a dog. It had belonged to her father. There was a fat paperback peeking out of the jacket’s hip pocket—in case of emergency, I supposed. Underneath the coat she wore a mechanic’s blue jumpsuit. Her hair was tied up in a black and green plaid scarf and as she crossed the atrium toward me she was tugging at the fingers of a pair of canvas gloves.
“Uh oh,” I said, “the gloves are off.”
“I hate you,” she said, putting her arms around me.
“I hate you, too,” I said.
We stood for a moment, holding on to each other, listening to the humming of the exhaust fans and the ticking of the heaters and the restless suspiration of the plants.
“Walter?” I said at last.
“He’s there.” She nodded in the general direction of campus. “But he’s a basket case,” she said. “We were robbed last night, Grady. They took his jacket. Marilyn’s jacket. And Dee’s missing.”
“I heard.”
She stepped away from me. “How did you hear?”
“Oh.” I dropped my hands to my sides and they hung there, feeling empty and boneless. “A policeman came to talk to me this morning.”
“Did you confess?”
I made myself laugh. “Actually,” I said. “That’s why I came to see you.”
“To confess?” She gave me a sharp poke in the belly and then sat down on the purple davenport. I sat down heavily beside her. “Bad Grady.” Lightly she slapped each of my cheeks with the gloves. Bad. Grady. “Your fingerprints were everywhere.”
“They were?” I felt my throat tighten. “That was fast.”
“I’m kidding. Hello? Kidding?”
“Ha,” I said.
“Aren’t I kidding, Grady?”
“Sure you are.”
“What are you doing?” she asked me, looking me over. “You look like you’re going camping.”
“I’m going out to Kinship.”
“Kinship? To see Emily?” She patted at the breast pocket of her jumpsuit, looking for cigarettes, then lowered her hand to her lap. She did not permit herself to smoke in the greenhouse. “Why? Did she call you?”
“Her father did.”
“Her father.”
“He invited me to their Seder. It’s the first night of Passover tonight.”
“Is it. I see.”
“Sara.”
“That’s fine. No, that’s really nice. You should be there.”
“Baby—”
“No, I’m serious. They’re your family. They’re like a family to you. You’ve told me that many times.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t, uh, decided anything yet. I’m not going up there to, you know, reconcile with Emily.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Are you going up there not to reconcile with her?”
“Well—yeah, yes, sort of. I don’t know.”
“I want you to know, Grady.”
“I know.”
“Now. I would like for you to decide.” She patted again at the empty breast pocket. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pressure you, but I need to know. If you’re going to stay with Emily, and her family, and I think you ought to, that’s a very commendable decision, then I want you to tell me that. If you’re planning to go up there to Kinship and tell Emily about you and me and this baby, then I want to know that, too. If you’re planning to leave Emily for me, although I certainly couldn’t advise you to do that, think of the complications all this is going to cause me on my end, then I also would want to know that.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, what?” said Sara.
I licked my lips. “I want to be with you,” I said. I was not in the least certain whether I meant what I said, nor just what the implications of